We had planned for one and a half days for the Annual Negotitiations Meeting, with even more time available if needed, but it turned out that we met only for about 1.5 hours this morning before concluding the work that was to be done. Everyone stayed in the air-conditioned meeting room the rest of the morning cleaning up notes and organizing materials, and then we had a farewell lunch for Johanna Karinen before she departed on an evening flight to Bangkok and then on to Helsinki.

Annual Negotiations Meeting and Departure10 February 2012

Justin Smith organized the materials and discussions for this series of meetings because it is his project, the Deaf Community Development Project, that is funded by the Finnish Association of the Deaf. Overnight he added some ideas from yesterday's discussions and then today presented a summary and picture of what still needs to be done before our application can be submitted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Finland. Clockwise are Justin Smith, Keat Sokly, Satia, Johanna Karinen, Cori Parks, and Ratha.

Lunch was at Romdeng, a very nice restaurant run by Mith Samlanh, an NGO that works with street children, to teach them restaurant and cooking skills. After lunch we presented Johanna Karinen with several gifts from the DDP staff.